


Man on the Run

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, First Kiss, J/B Shuffled Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne experiences certain events differently and witnesses certain events she didn’t in ASOS. Her relationship with Jaime changes accordingly.</p><p>A response to the Jaime/Brienne Shuffled Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man on the Run

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Man on the Run](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/dashberlin/manontherun.html) by Dash Berlin. Nothing owned by me.

What is seen can never be unseen, and a kiss can never be unkissed.

Ser Jaime kissed her the evening after the day their party found out about the Freys’ vile treachery ( _she will not dignify the horror that was done to Lady Catelyn and her son by calling it the name some singer quickly invented_ ). Steelshanks’ men allowed her quite a bit of privacy whenever they made camp, but Ser Jaime sometimes shared her little fire. He came to her that evening, more to explain his father’s reasoning than to offer an apology. Not that she expected one from him. He was not the one who needed to apologize and make amends, nor would he ever have perpetrated such a monstrous act on guests under his own roof. She knew him better than that now. 

At least, she thought she knew him. When his words failed to lift her spirits ( _as how could they?_ ), he laid his hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, startled, he kissed her. Nobody had ever kissed her before, and it was a strange kiss, like nothing heard of in songs or witnessed at drunken soldiers’ revels. It was neither fervent nor lustful. It was… tender, and sad, a mark of their complicity, the things they had seen and known together, which nobody else could or would know. 

Brienne knew better than to think that kiss heralded something more, yet she could not stop her heart bolting like an unbroken filly whenever she thought of it. Her heart deafened her when they reached King’s Landing, when Ser Jaime prevented her being arrested for Renly’s murder, when he declared she had the freedom of the Red Keep and of the city, and anyone who objected would have to deal with him. “You ought to be blowing me kisses, wench,” he whispered to her before he went to pay his respects to his dead king ( _his son_ ). Words light as air, insubstantial as wind, yet how they made Brienne’s heart clench and thump. 

She could not decide, later on, why she followed him. To pay her respects to a king whose claim on the throne she rejected? To pay her respects to Ser Jaime’s son, maybe, as much as the thought of Joffrey as his son filled her with revulsion. 

To be there in case Ser Jaime needed comforting? He was not a child, he had never accepted her pity before, why should he begin now.

To be there in case he needed a friend. Someone who wanted nothing more from him than his company. 

Yes. This is what she told herself was her reason when she entered the sept, and saw Ser Jaime with his sister. They were profaning the sept, turning the vigil for their wicked son into a mummery, mocking the gods. As they had always done, if the rumors about them were true, as Brienne now knew they were. Her heart clenched, and clenched, and cracked like an icicle. 

She fled the sept unnoticed, and wandered the halls of the Red Keep for days, no more than a specter of herself. _A man without honor_ , Lady Catelyn’s words to him. _I dreamed of you. A man without honor._

When he summoned her to his chambers, she almost did not go. It seemed impossible to stand there, alone with him in the chambers in which Lords Commander of the Kingsguard, honorable men all, chaste and godsfearing to a fault, had lived and served out their lifetimes. What could he possibly have to say to her behind closed doors? Why had he kissed her? Why had he ever saved her from the Brave Companions?

She knew that was going too far. After all, he had done nothing which would warrant her challenging him to a duel for her tainted honor. Her lost and damaged heart was not worthy of single combat. It was worthless to anyone, except her. 

Words, cruel and caring, mocking and true, came to him so easily, while she fumbled among them as in a thicket of thorns, twisted and turned like a woman strung up on a gibbet. 

He called Sansa Stark his last chance for honor, wanted Brienne to name the blade Oathkeeper, said it came with a price. _You already extracted your price, ser_ , she thought as he talked. She could not stand to look at him. _Lannisters lie._ His own words. Even though no words had been exchanged between them, no promises. 

Her septa’s advice came to her suddenly, words she had not understood and thought made no sense: _A man never does so much damage as when he blunders about without intent. Ill intent can be foreseen. Thoughtlessness and whim cannot._

Ser Jaime talked of honor and her ugly face and the death of kings in the same breath. _This is a mummery_ , Brienne thought. She wished she could stop up his mouth, that she would never think of him once she left his chambers, though she knew that was impossible. She wished she could make him flee her as she had done Ser Humfrey, the men she had beaten in the melee. He had made her his plaything on a whim ( _she had let herself feel something to which she had no right_ ), and it would be just if he did run before her in terror. She remembered him, naked in his terror in the Riverlands, and was ashamed, and raged against him silently. 

“I will find the girl and keep her safe. For her lady mother’s sake. And for yours,” she said finally, accepting his sword, his word. Words he expected to hear, who had never experienced anyone telling him _no_. And she meant it: she was a woman of honor still. 

Jaime Lannister was a man fleeing himself, a stranger to himself. This is what she thought as she saddled the beautiful bay mare and left the city. She would stay true to the word she had given him, and she would dream of him, she strongly suspected, but she could not forgive his carelessness. The years of it before she knew him, the moment of it by the Kingsroad. The moments in the sept, burned into the dark space behind her eyelids. The eternity of her pained, crippled heartbeats.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a Jaime POV counterpart [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1004442), also a part of the J/B Shuffled Challenge


End file.
